Re:Let's Encrypt has issued its first million certificates
by comex on Tuesday March 08, 2016 @03:16PM
(#11248223)
Since LetsEncrypt's API protocol is being standardized through the IETF (https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-acme-acme), there's no reason any new competing free certificate providers can't be compatible with it. In the long term, if more show up (and I wouldn't be surprised if some existing CAs refocus their business on EV and start offering free DV certs through ACME), I see no problem with software giving the protocol a "monopoly", in the sense of building in auto-configuration support for it.
DNSSEC puts the CA monopoly in the DNS. There is no API for a hypothetical web server using DANE, because there's no need for periodic domain validation. Of course, DNSSEC is a disaster, so it's a non-starter... but I'm still going to lament the fact that everything is terrible.